


Someone you'd be proud of

by Say_Anything



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, I have a lot of feelings about Glimmer after the finale, and I'm cryin in the club right now, and a smattering of shipping, and they support each other, because these two are the softest, but mostly it's just soft comfort, this is how i cope, with angsty oneshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 20:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20088394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Say_Anything/pseuds/Say_Anything
Summary: In the aftermath of the portal, Glimmer grieves.





	Someone you'd be proud of

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I'm feeling some major Glimmer feels after the finale of season 3....She's so smol but now she must be so strong. :(  
This is mostly just an angsty oneshot for Glimmer, but Adora is there for her and I ship them too much to not make it a little fluffy.
> 
> RIP Queen Angella, the hero we did not deserve.

She’d done a pretty good job of avoiding Adora and Bow over the past few days; which was a fairly impressive task, if you asked her. Bow was particularly difficult to dodge. He hadn’t left Brightmoon since…well, since the entire world nearly tore itself apart. Glimmer wanted to tell him to go. To scream at him that he should be checking on his dads. The he should cherish and appreciate them and find out if they were safe.

She suspected Bow thought the same. But he was worried about her. They all were. Even the guards gave her looks beneath their masks when she passed them in the halls. There were murmurs and whispers and quiet condolences. There were talks about her…What to do with her now that Angella…

She was the only heir. She was Queen of Brightmoon now, right? But she was still so young.

_I don’t even have my wings, yet, _Glimmer told herself over and over again, as if it was the only valid defense she could form. _There’s no way I can rule a kingdom. I’m—I’m not ready. I’m not good enough. I’m not her._

Along with these spiraling thoughts, were the ones that repeated themselves on a loop in her head. The last ones she’d said to her mother. The anger, the spite, the absolute disrespect.

_You would see that, if you weren’t totally paralyzed by fear!_

Glimmer remembered backing her into a corner, insulting her against the mural of her father, adamant that her mother was a coward.

When in the end, she’d been the bravest of them all.

And Glimmer would never be able to tell her how proud she was. How sorry she was. How scared she was. Nothing. Ever again.

Gripping the sheets of her bed until her knuckles turned white, Glimmer leaned forward, burying her face in her pillow and screaming. The sound was muffled by the fabric, but it echoed in Glimmer’s ears like a thunderclap. She screamed again and again and again, until her voice cracked and the tears burst forth. Releasing the blankets, she curled into a ball and clutched the pillow to her chest instead, sobbing until her body shook with the effort.

For days she’d kept to herself, kept the thoughts from overwhelming her. For days, she tried to be the queen her mother was. But now, alone in her room, she was just Glimmer.

And Glimmer was broken.

A quiet knock on her door put a hitch in her sobs and she glanced up, as if expecting to see someone standing over her. There was nothing, of course, save for another knock on the door, this one a little louder.

“Glimmer?” _Adora_. “You in there?”

It was Adora she’d wanted to avoid most of all. She knew that her friend must feel a tremendous amount of guilt. She’d blame herself for Angella’s sacrifice and then Glimmer would have to be the strong one. The one to reassure her that it was alright, that she made the right choice. But for as much as she wanted to be that sense of strength and comfort for Adora, right now, she needed it more for herself.

“Can I come in?” Adora’s voice was muffled through the door, but Glimmer could hear the tentativeness in it…the fear?

‘No’ was the first word that came to mind. But the thought of being alone any longer was more painful than the thought of having to comfort Adora through her own grief. And so, slowly, she sat up and rubbed the sticky tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.

Teleporting down from her bed, Glimmer unlocked the door and allowed Adora inside. The taller girl was silent, gazing at Glimmer with a deep sadness in those blue eyes she loved so much. Adora twitched as they stood staring at each other, as if she wanted to move closer, but in the end decided to keep her distance. Instead, she clenched her fists at her sides, eyes finally flickering away from Glimmer’s to the tips of her boots.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in a few days.”

“You haven’t,” Glimmer acknowledged, hating how thick and scratchy her voice sounded. A dead giveaway that she’d been sobbing her guts out. “I’ve been pretty busy. New Queen stuff.”

Adora nodded, but her brows drew together, low over her eyes. “Bow and I were hoping we’d be able to help you with…all that. But he says you’ve been avoiding him.”

“He’s being dramatic,” Glimmer hissed as she crossed her arms and moved away from Adora towards the large open window. Slowly, her sadness was boiling in her chest, turning into a hot ball of anger. “I’m not avoiding anyone.”

“Glimmer.” Adora’s voice was a plea and it made the hot ball burn a little brighter. “Not even the castle guards see you around. Castaspella says you teleport away whenever she manages to track you down.”

“Well what does everyone want with me anyway?” Glimmer shouted suddenly, throwing out her arms and whirling on Adora.

Adora looked surprised, her brow wrinkling in confusion. “We’re all trying to figure out what to do next...Now that…Angella…”

“Go ahead. Say it,” Glimmer prodded, anger boiling over. “Now that she what?”

“Glimmer.” Adora reached for her, but Glimmer slapped her hand away, the anger turning into hot tears that streamed down her cheeks again.

“Now that she’s _gone_, Adora! Now that I have to lead an entire kingdom. Now that I have to go on knowing my mother _left_ thinking I hated her. Now that I know that I was the reason she felt she had to—,” The anger fizzled away, leaving an empty hollow feeling in her chest, and Glimmer sunk to her knees, hands rising to cover her tear stained face. “I can’t do this.”

Adora knelt in front of her, resting her hands on Glimmer’s shaking shoulders. “You don’t have to do it alone, Glimmer. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. Everyone here, the princesses, me and Bow…We’re all here for you.”

Glimmer looked up at Adora, her figure blurry through the tears. “But _she’s _not.”

Adora’s own eyes began to glisten. She opened her mouth as if to speak and then paused and looked up at Glimmer’s bed, then back down at the princess.

“Think you can take us up there for a bit? It’ll be way more comfortable than the floor.”

Tired, spent, and unwilling to argue, Glimmer teleported the two of them up onto her bed in a brief flash of light. Once she settled in the soft, warm cushions, it was hard to want to do anything but sleep away her pain. Adora seemed to have other plans though. She pulled a few pillows up into a pile and then gathered Glimmer against her chest, leaning back until they both rested against the mountain of cushions. Before Glimmer even had a chance to speak, one of Adora’s hands was in her hair, fingers combing through the strands gently.

“It always helps me when you do this after my nightmares,” she explained softly, breath tickling Glimmer’s ear. “But I can stop if you want me to.”

Glimmer shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut and burying her face in Adora’s shoulder. She’d been denying herself human contact for so long that Adora’s touch felt like heaven. For the countless time that afternoon, tears sprung to her eyes again and she sniffed against Adora’s jacket, struggling to hold them back.

“It’s okay to cry,” Adora murmured, the hand that wasn’t in Glimmer’s hair now trailing down her back. “You tell me that all the time.”

Burrowing into Adora’s side, Glimmer hid her face against the blonde’s neck and let her tears fall, soaking the collar of her jacket almost immediately. She wound one arm around Adora’s waist, gripping her tightly, as if she were the only thing keeping her tethered to this world.

And maybe, at this point, she was.

“I’m scared,” Glimmer whispered her voice small in the oppressive quiet of the room.

“Me too, “ Adora murmured, and Glimmer felt her cheek press down against the top of her head.

“I miss her.”

“Me too.”

They sat in silence for a long time, holding one another, with only the sound of Glimmer’s soft sobs to accompany them. Adora continued stroking her back, her hair, with hands that Glimmer had never known to be so gentle. She’d seen the blonde wield a sword, throw a punch, climb a cliff face with those hands. But somehow, as they trailed lightly over her skin now, they were the softest things in the world. Slowly, Glimmer’s cries turns to whimpers and the tears dried on her cheeks.

When she was entirely spent, she asked, “How am I supposed to do this?”

Adora thought for a moment and then pulled back from the embrace, encouraging Glimmer to look at her. “Do you wanna know what the last thing she said to me was?”

“Do I?” The thought made Glimmer’s throat tighten.

“She told me that we need to ‘take care of each other’.” Adora gave her a soft smile. “That means you and me. You and Bow. The princesses. Everyone. We have to look out for one another and support each other. What happened to Etheria almost destroyed everything. And the only way we’re going to rebuild, is if we rely on our friends. On each other.”

Glimmer stared up at Adora, both surprised and grateful for her friend’s powerful optimism. She’d been expecting guilt and grief. And maybe Adora did feel that. But maybe she also knew that Glimmer needed her to be strong now.

Maybe she was already heeding her mother’s last words.

Letting her forehead fall against Adora’s chest, she squirmed against her side, attempting to pull her somehow closer.

“You’ll help me?”

“Of course I will, Glimmer. I’m your friend. I’ll always be here for you.”

Glimmer felt her pulse begin to pound when Adora set her lips against the princesses’ forehead. It was brief, and Glimmer didn’t have the emotional capacity to even begin to unravel the feelings it set off inside of her. But that didn’t matter. What did matter was that she had Adora’s support. She had all of her friends.

“Will you be my co-queen, then?” she asked, her voice muffled against Adora’s shoulder.

Adora laughed, the sound light and clear. “I think the correct term is King, and I’m not sure that’s how that works.”

“Oh, right.” Glimmer let out a wet chuckle too when Adora nudged her off her shoulder and rested their forehead together. Glimmer’s breath hitched as blue eyes met hers.

“Your mom loved you very much, Glimmer. And more than that, she always believed in you. I know she had every faith that you could do this.”

Glimmer nodded, the tears that gathered in the corner of her eyes this time almost bittersweet. Adora smiled at her again and then leaned back against the pillows. They sunk down and Glimmer found herself cradled against Adora’s chest. She stared at the red fabric of Adora’s jacket, watching it rise and fall with her friend’s steady breaths.

“Thank you,” Glimmer said after some time spent tracing absent patterns on Adora’s stomach. “Not just for the queen stuff. For everything. For being my friend. For joining us in the woods that day. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Adora’s jaw clenched for a moment as she stared up at the ceiling, Glimmer felt it tighten against her forehead. But before she could decipher that reaction, Adora sighed and stroked a lazy hand through her hair again and Glimmer’s eyelids drooped.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you either, Glim.”

Closing her eyes, Glimmer snuggled more comfortably against Adora’s side, letting the agony of the day slip away in her friend’s embrace.

“Will you…stay?” she slurred as exhaustion began to overtake her.

The last thing Glimmer felt were Adora’s lips on her forehead again.

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, hit me up if you also want to cry and scream, I'm on tumblr :D  
@freezingmyblitzballs


End file.
